Organizational Communication Commons^™

Communication Partnerships That Work: Translating Evidence-Based Health Research Into Practice, Angela Carman, Gretchen Holmes, Anna G. Hoover, Margaret Mcgladrey, Ernie Scott, Mary Tucker-Mclaughlin, Nancy Winterbauer

Anna G. Hoover

Healthcare and public health research ultimately seek to improve patient and population health. Unfortunately, more than a decade often passes before research findings become routinized in practice. Improving translational speed, reach, and efficacy requires partnerships among researchers, practitioners, community stakeholders, and communication scholars. This panel will be presenting two partnership models that work.

The University of Kentucky (UK) Center of Excellence in Rural Health (CERH) seeks to improve the health of rural Kentuckians through education, research, service, and community engagement. They do this by partnering with hospitals and clinics, health professionals, community service agencies, non-profits and other organizations. Panelists will …

Dissemination And Implementation Research: Connecting Interventions To Practice, Anna G. Hoover, Angela Carman

Anna G. Hoover

This presentation describes a pilot study to evaluate the complex relationships among organizational structure and characteristics, channel selection, and changes in uptake in the implementation of an evidence-based HPV vaccine intervention in Kentucky local health departments.

Commentary: Changing The Channel: Public Health Communication In The 21st Century, Anna Goodman Hoover

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

This commentary asserts the need for research examining the use and efficacy of social media as a tool for meeting public health stakeholders’ information needs. The author points to several potential research questions for the field, situates studies addressing these questions within the PHSSR Research Agenda, and introduces the work of Harris et al. that is included in this issue of Frontiers. The commentary closes with a call for horizontal stakeholder communication that supports evidence-based decision-making.

Organizational Response To Perceptual Risk: Managing Substantial Response To Unsubstantiated Events, Elizabeth L. Petrun

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Analysis and perceived severity of risk influences organizational decisions to anticipated threats. As economic development and technology improve our standards of living, they also create new challenges to conceptualizing concrete and abstract threats. Organizations that face new threats, along with agencies that oversee these organizations, produce tightly coupled systems that increase risks for direct, indirect, and future stakeholders (Perrow, 1999). Natural disasters, political misbehavior, organizational corruption, financial collapse, food and water contaminations, chemical or nuclear accidents, international tension, to name a few, all present risks and challenges. Unfortunately, many of these situations endanger the lives and well-being of persons. The …

Sensemaking In The Shadow Of A Superfund Site: Defining Atsdr Roles And Goals In An Agency-Saturated Community, Anna G. Hoover, Lindell Ormsbee, Stephanie W. Jenkins, Ashley M. Bush

Anna G. Hoover

By working directly in Superfund communities, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is embedded within a complex tapestry of federal and state agencies, local government entities, and other organizations that community stakeholders encounter regularly. The diversity of statutory obligations and expertise among these organizations, particularly as they relate to stakeholders’ health concerns, presents challenges for creating shared understanding between agencies and the communities they serve. Thus, addressing key elements of individual sensemaking during engagement activities is essential for those who work in communities.

Because sensemaking helps individuals determine the seriousness of a situation, decide how to react to …